A Mug Of Java

Saturday, 14 February 2015

Since the release of Peak Flow last October, I have received encouraging feedback and some great suggestions for new features and improvements. As a result, a Beta release of the next version, 1.1, has been uploaded to the Google Play Store and is available to all Beta testers. This release adds enhancements to the Graph allowing for the display of a user's green, yellow and red zones, and personal best values. For more information, or if you would like to join the Beta test programme and help with the testing, head on over to the Peak Flow website.

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

I have been a professional software developer for close to two decades, and whilst my day job takes up a lot of my time I still like to write software in my free time. More recently, I have been looking in to mobile application development; after all, mobile is the future! So, some time in development I am pleased to have released my first app for the Android platform called Peak Flow.

This app is aimed at Asthmatics and allows you to record and track your daily peak flow readings. You can also plot graphs and share them with your GP, Asthma nurse or even your friends.

If you would like to find out more please head over to the web site, or grab it directly from the Google Play Store.

Wednesday, 30 November 2011

I love my little HTC Android handset, but one thing that does bug me, despite HTC's moniker of "Quietly Brilliant" is that every time you turn the handset on it plays a loud and annoying startup sound which cannot be disabled. So, to combat this I have put together a small Android App which silences this noisy start.

The app is fairly simple. It switches the ringer and media volumes to silent when you shut the handset down, and restores them again when you switch the handset back on and bootup has completed.

If you wish to install the app you can find the apk file here. In order to install it you will need to ensure that you have "Unknown sources" option enabled which you will find in Settings -> Applications.

I have only tested it on my own HTC Wildfire S so any feedback from other device users would be greatly appreciated.

Note : Doesn't currently seem to work correctly with Fast Boot enabled.

Monday, 27 June 2011

I like to keep my router locked down and so I keep my SSID hidden. This has never been a problem, until that is, I bought myself an Android smartphone. Although it was possible to connect to my hidden network by adding it manually and entering the password details when prompted, it only seemed to connect the first time. Subsequent connections would always fail. In the end, after some Googling (other search engines are available) I managed to resolve the problem:

From your home screen hit the menu button and select settings.

Select Wireless & Networks

Select Wi-Fi settings

Select Add Wi-Fi network

Enter the SSID for the hidden network. DO NOT CLICK SAVE.

As you can just see from the screen shot the form is in fact scrollable and contains more than just the Network SSID value. Scroll the form to reveal the security type list box.

Select the security used for your network.

Scroll the form further to reveal the password box and enter the password.

Click Save and it after a few seconds it should connect! And that should be it. You should find that it will now connect every time. Happy Surfing!

Monday, 13 December 2010

The latest incarnation of the Opera Browser, version 11 is currently in Beta (at time of writing) and so far I have been really impressed with it. I may finally have found an alternative to the excellent, but increasingly sluggish FireFox. However, despite it's speed, overall elegant looks and ease of use the first thing I noticed upon installing it was how ugly most of the fonts looked (something that had previously been fine in earlier 10 releases) and no matter how much tweaking I made to my .fonts.conf file I couldn't improve things. I then discovered that during the 10.x cycle Opera switched from using .fonts.conf to xrdb. Adding the following into the .Xdefaults file in my home directory and re-starting X solved the problem and now the fonts look great again :

If you find after doing the above the fonts still look ugly, it may be that .Xdefaults on your system is not being read or honored. So, add xrdb -override .Xdefaults to your .bashrc script and try again! As you can see from the screen shots below - the fonts look much better after the config change.

Friday, 12 November 2010

My IDE of choice is NetBeans and my development platform, Mandriva Linux with a KDE desktop. During my time as a Java developer I have always run NetBeans (and Java Desktop applications in general) using the default Metal look and feel having found the GTK laf unusable on my KDE desktop; the fonts, tabs and menus look awful. So, when I learnt about a new look and feel called Nimbus that was to be introduced with JDK 6 u10 I was eager to try it out. However, my enthusiasm soon turned to disappointment when I discovered similar rendering problems I had found with the GTK laf, so, back to Metal I went.... Until a few days ago when, with my system on the latest updates of JDK 6 and NetBeans I decided to try it again. This time I was pleasantly surprised - it looked fabulous! The fonts, tabs, menu - all rendering perfectly. All of a sudden NetBeans looked less flat and more polished.

It was a shame to read in a recent post that Oracle has decided to keep Metal as the default laf for JDK 7 rather than switching to Nimbus. But for me, I think I will be making a permanent switch to Nimbus. Bye, Bye metal. You did a good job but now it's time to go...